September 2001 - Santee Cooper, a state-owned electric and water utility in South Carolina serving 130,000 retail customers, received approval from its Board of Directors to offer a green power pilot program to its customers. Under the optional program, residential and commercial customers can sign up to purchase blocks of renewable power at a price premium of 3¢/kWh. Initially, the pilot program will be offered to Santee Cooper customers in Horry and Georgetown counties and to customers of Horry Electric Cooperative.

The green power will be supplied from a new 2.2-MW, landfill-methane project at the Horry County landfill. Revenue collected from the green power sales will be used for future renewable energy projects. In market surveys conducted by Santee Cooper, 35 percent of the utility's residential customers and 58 percent of commercial customers indicated interest in purchasing green power.